THE MOSSES 69 
eccentric individuals that worry us by hankering in some 
point or other after a higher or lower subdivision. 
The great glory, then, of the mosses, as compared with 
the alge and the fungi, is that we can clearly see their 
differentiated stem and leaves. Some, it is true, are 
so small that the different parts cannot be separated 
without a magnifying-glass, and in some the leaves are 
but small scales which require a good deal of searching 
for, but they can be found with a little trouble. Not 
only have they stem and leaves, but also they have 
something approaching to roots. The seaweeds some- 
times seem to have roots, and one notices, after a storm, 
pebbles thrown up on the shore wrapped up in what look 
like the fingers of the base of some ribbon-bodied alga. 
But these growths are not true roots; they are merely 
anchors, and do not perform any function in the way | 
of taking up nourishment for the plant. Now the mosses 
and liverworts do not send down bundles of tissue like 
the plants we know better, but on their under side are 
“yoot-hairs,”’ such as those which cover the actual roots 
of ferns and flowering plants, and these are busy in 
taking up the water and mineral salts that are necessary 
for the plant. 
On the other hand, the mosses are still cut off from 
the plants above them by the fact that they consist of 
cells only, and have not yet learned to combine the cells 
into vessels. The “bundles” of Chapter III. are not to 
be found in mosses or liverworts, but, and this is most 
important, we do find indications of various cells in the 
plant being modified for special work, and especially the 
cells in those parts of the plant where the bundles will 
appear when we reach the next group. You will re- 
member, for instance, that the veins of the leaf are 
